Banned deucer.

aka. FOMG

I haven't thought long about it so maybe I am missing something but I think it would be better if players can be sold back without having to be inactive/a bad presence or whatever. There could even be additional restrictions like not allowing a newly bought player from sellback credits to play for the following week should you be concerned about teams trying to abuse this system too much. Or just limiting the number of times players can be sold back per team.
Of course, should a player be toxic or refuse to play for a certain team, they should get punished accordingly. But if someone was viewed as a good team member, I find it absurd to punish them if something unexpected happens in their life that prevents them from continuing in the tour.

Now, this isn't just gonna be a sheet looking exercise, where we just rank teams based on the order they're in right now. As we all know, seeding is absolutely meaningless, so this ranking will be focused on predicting who will win the SPL trophy, rather than winning the regular season. The standings themselves aren't so much as important as the performances of a teams' players. Of course, to win the trophy, you also have to make the playoffs, so points are still relatively important. That being said, having more points than another team at this stage is obviously relatively important. Having the highest amount of points at this time doesn't necessarily guarantee that you will be #1 on the rankings; however, obviously, your team wouldn't be first if you didn't have a myriad of players performing well, which should increase your ranking nonetheless. These rankings will heavily factor in my original rankings, which I will be quoting along the way; if a player has displayed excellence contrary to my expectations, or flopped spectacularly in a fashion I wasn't expecting, his / her performance will be pointed out, and thus result in his / her team being higher / lower on the rankings.

I will be going in alphabetical order, and then providing a final ranking at the end. So...let's begin!

The Alpha Ruiners [8 points]:

Well, talk about the surprise of the season LOOOOL The Ruiners were not only ranked last in my rankings, but on the official Power Rankings as well; most people I talked to, from a variety of Jerks, thought this was without question one of the worst teams. However, they are currently dominating the tournament, due to many unlikely performances from their perceived sub-par players.

Gondra, Dr. Caetano, and ximraptor are the primary reasons why the Ruiners are heavily outperforming pre-season expectations. Gondra was projected to be an absolute disaster by most of the community after a Snake draft that left spectators questioning his viability in tournaments. However, he's somehow ascended and become one of the best players in the entire tour, going 5-0 while knocking off SM OU favorites blunder and Welli0u. Considering that SM OU is filled with a myriad of sub-par players, it would not be inconceivable for Gondra to run the table and go 9-0. In a year where many teams are struggling and there are no massive favorites, having a weak slot become absolutely dominant can truly be the key to helping an underhyped roster make the playoffs. Dr. Caetano is another player projected to be pretty terrible for the Ruiners who is having a phenomenal season. He's 4-1 in a BW pool some individuals such as Finchinator have dubbed the strongest in recent memory. These two are carrying the load, and are the major driving forces behind the Ruiners' success. Raptor has had a really solid season as well, going 4-1 and showing that his Snake performance may not have been a fluke after all. He's really farming the pool right now, and he has a good shot to finish with a nice record.

FLCL has been better than anticipated, and currently has a 4-1 record. I think he's a good player, but I definitely don't expect him to continue at this pace for the rest of the season. That being said, I think he should definitely end the regular season with around 6 wins. Besides him, OU core is basically average, which means that they aren't actively hurting the team. Empo's struggles aren't that surprising to me either, since I did think he was a overrated. jake is 3-2, and considering that he was bought for under 10k despite his Snake dominance, looks to be a solid pick-up at this point in time. qsns was ranked very low on the Doubles PR, but he is positive as well. This is basically the trend of the entire team; hardly anyone is doing absolutely terrible, and this combined from some spectacular performances from Gondra and Dr. Caetano are vaulting them to the top of SPL.

Prinz is performing admirably for the team, compiling a 4-1 record while flexing into RBY as well, acting as a strong backbone of the roster. He has admittedly been pretty fortunate the past 2 weeks, but it is RBY, I guess...I'd assume that they'll put him back in ADV next week, since Altina's performance this week, albeit against the goat himself, left much to be desired; Sadylsius was also unimpressive last week. If Prinz plays ADV, the team is VERY weak in DPP and RBY. The good news for them is that, if there's any 2 tiers you want to be bad in, it's the two meme variance tiers. Hyoga has struggled a great deal in the thinking gen, which isn't surprising considering that he's pretty bad, as evidenced by his performance in the previous SPL. Their main RBYer, ErPeris is also an absolute joke, so god knows if he can pick up a win. Maybe it's time to put Valentine in RBY, lol. FOMG, meanwhile, is 3-2, and has had some decent performances. He should continue to be an above average GSCer, I suppose, although I'm still not drinking the kool-aid like other people I know. Overall, this team has had some surprising performances; I'm still not a major believer in many of their players, but they have enough competent pieces that are on upswings that they should easily be able to make the playoffs, and perhaps even challenge for the trophy.

The Circus Maximus Tigers [3 points]:

The Tigers were many people's dark horse to make the playoffs. I didn't really have that much faith in them, but they seemed like they could contend for a playoff spot. They've had a pretty rough go of things so far, and it would be pretty surprising if they turned things around.

They've had some good performances from Osh and Luigi. Osh was ranked 7th in the PRs, which was later determined to be purely because he pissed off a lot of the rankers; way to be unbiased, bros. He looks like the best LCer right now, along with Pablo, so he should continue to dominate from now on. Luigi has had a nice season, which isn't overly surprising considering how bad the SM OU pool is. I don't think he'll be able to keep up this pace, but he should end with a nice record. Bowman is above .500 as well, so I guess there's that.

Their SS OU core also looks to be in pretty bad shape, though, with tace, rob, and LLL all sporting records below .500. This is obviously a major reason for their poor performance; I don't really have any faith in these players, so it wouldn't be surprising if they continued to flop and sabotage the Tigers. Considering the low amount of resources they put into this tier, though, the poor performances of these cheap players shouldn't be enough to derail the Tigers' season.

Unfortunately for them, the rest of the team has looked absolutely washed. Gama has looked pretty shaky this tournament, and has had some pretty suspect performances that make his 21k price tag look like a massive overpay. Considering that he has struggled a solid amount in recent memory, it would be unwise to expect him to suddenly return to the sheet warrior god mode form he displayed a few tours ago. Kaz is below .500 in the meme variance tier, Vay struggled a great deal in the other variance tier, and Roro got lucked to shit in the 1st 2 weeks. He appears to be turning it around, now, though, and the ADV pool looks like a complete disaster, so I would honestly be a bit surprised if he didn't end with 6 wins. Unfortunately, one amazing player can't patch all the holes of a sinking ship. One of the primary reasons the team is faltering is the absolutely putrid performance of dekzeh, who proved the validity of the crust rule for the 920900th time. He had some brutal performances, and the team decided to cut their losses and bench him after Week 3, meaning that they are basically playing with a 123k roster. Add in the aforementioned struggles of 21k Gama and Roro's poor luck, and it's honestly unsurprising that this team is performing terribly. One of the team's big surprises, though, is Zokuru, who went from looking like one of the worst players on the site against Pearl, to somehow being 2-0 against GSC with a nice win against Conflict. If he can keep it up, and if Gama and Roro run the table, the team does have enough talent to make the playoffs. However, I'm pretty skeptical that they will be able to rebound from such a poor start.

The Congregation of the Classiest [5 points]:

The Classiest remain firmly in the mix for a playoff spot, currently sporting 5 points through 5 weeks. Their OU core has been pretty impressive, with the exception of Relous anyway LOL suapah has arguably been the best player in SPL. and has been the major driving force in the Classiest's solid run so far; he's gone 4-1 against a murderer's row of opponents in Eo / blunder / FLCL / star / Lopunny Kicks, which is absolutely ridiculous. I've never been that impressed with suapah, but considering how well he's done against such tough opposition, there's no reason to expect him to slow down anytime soon, especially if he gets matched up with some scrubs for once. blargh has been good as well outside of his dodging antics, and looks to be much like the player we've come to expect over the past few tournaments, and not the dogshit clown from a few years ago. Insult started off super hot, but has fallen off lately, and made some sub-par plays against Jayde in his game today as well. I never fully bought into the hype, but at least he has some promise; he should be able to finish positive, at least. The performances of these players has allowed them to somewhat mitigate the disastrous performance Relous has put on this SPL; he's been pretty terrible, and it would be surprising if they put him in the lineup again.

Another player that has surprised is stax, who a lot of people, including me, saw as an overhyped Doubles player who really never does anything remarkable. However, he's been pretty good this tour, compiling a 4-1 record. Another player who has exceeded expectations is The Idiot Ninja, who has managed to put together a 4-1 record in the meme variance tier. I'm pretty skeptical about this, considering that it is RBY, but yeah. He should finish positive, at least.

The superstars of the team, Tama and Anti, have had some solid performances, and both are currently positive. Speaking of Tama, management finally decided it was a smart idea to not waste their best player on a variance tier when they have other holes to fill LOL finally jesus. Anyway, they will need these two to finish strong in order to secure a playoff spot, but the fact that the team has had some nice weeks despite their best players not dominating the competition is a good sign. The rest of the slots have been pretty underwhelming. Serene Grace has been decent, I guess; I still don't really believe in him though. Persephone looks worse by the week, and I'm really starting to doubt his viability after some of the sets he brought this week LOOOL what the hell is non-scald Slowking and SR Gliscor without EQ??? LOL Raiza has a poor 1-4 record, but he has faced the most of luck of probably anyone in SPL, and could definitely be positive right now. However, he has misplayed a decent amount, though, most notably this week against KG. He's clearly displayed some talent, though, and is actually better than I thought; I expect him to get a few wins in the last 4 weeks of the season. The real disaster of the team is Teclis, who has looked like an absolute mess through 4 weeks. It might be time to finally put Tamahome in his original home of ADV...just saying, because I don't think this guy's particularly viable. Overall, this team has some solid players and has had some surprising performances. While I do expect some regression, I also expect Tama and Anti to finish strong; Anti in particular should only get better by the week as he gets more GSC experience. Tama's flexibility is also a huge selling point for the team.

The Cryonicles [7 points]:

I think it's safe to say I was higher on the Cryos than almost anyone on this site LOL I believed in them more than their own players, even. They've looked pretty fire this tour, and I expect them to be a major contender for the ring in a month. The team has primarily been led to glory by Pablo and Finch. Pablo is currently 5-0, and is looking like the best LCer; I still have more faith in Osh due to his past performances, but it would be unwise to expect Pablo to regress any time soon. Finch has looked pretty solid this tour himself, although he has had some good fortune at times; considering that he's already played dice and SoulWind, it's very likely that he finishes the regular season with 7 wins or so. z0m is also 4-1, although he has been VERY lucky up to this point, so that record's a bit misleading. I did say he was gonna be one of the steals of the draft, so at least his record's good. He will need to play a lot better to maintain this pace, though; he also still has to face off against Roro and BKC, so...we'll see.

The most surprising thing about this team's success is that their vaunted OU core actually hasn't even been that amazing. Sacri', Eo, and Kanto aren't exactly lighting the world on fire, but they're all winning at the right times to secure wins for their team. I'm still a major believer in these players, especially GOD KANTO, so I'm pretty confident they will all finish this tour strong. The major disappointment of this roster is Leftiez, who got kicked out and traded to the BIGs after some pretty poor performances; he did manage to beat John last week in a 7-5 win, though, so he wasn't completely useless. The Cryos decided to replace him with soulgazer, a noted lower tier sheet warrior; however, I'm not the biggest believer in him in CG OU. He did get the win today, but he was extremely fortunate to do so. The team does have a good foundation to support him, so I guess there's that. Another struggling player on the team is tman, who has looked pretty bad. He did win this week, and there were decently high expectations of him, so maybe he can turn it around.

The old gens of the team have been a mixed bag. Garay Oak has struggled a bit, and considering his pretty non-existent old gen track record, he's clearly the weak point of the team; there's really no evidence he can succeed in ORAS, so it wouldn't shock me if he finished the tour pretty poorly. The team got a bit lucky with Jirachee's departure, as their current DPPer, shawyu, managed to achieve a 3-1 record; there's no way Jirachee ever would have been 3-1, so I guess there's that. He does have osgoode helping him, so he'll probably continue to do fine. MrE has had some REALLY bad showings, especially against anti and conflict. He did manage to rattle off 2 wins, though, and I was a believer in him heading into this tour; he was pretty clearly an overpay, but I think he'll end the tour with 4 or 5 wins. Their random RBY player has been decent too, I guess. Overall, this team has performed admirably so far, and their big players haven't really been world-beaters either. I have a lot of faith in this team, as evidenced by my pre-season ranking, and I think I would mark them as the favorites for the trophy right now.

The Dragonspiral Tyrants [5 points]:

The pre-season favorites found themselves in a near must-win situation this week after a poor start. They proved that they are not going out easily, though, notching a nice win against the BIGs and keeping themselves in playoff contention. The team has been led by TDK, marilli, and.......Floppy? LOOOOOOOOOL jesus. TDK has bounced back after a string of poor tours, and it looks like the launch of the new generation was in fact pretty kind to him. He will need to continue ascending to help the Tyrants win the ring, and I have a solid amount of faith in that happening after his hot start. marilli was low ranked in the PR, but he has been a fearsome competitor this tournament; his rise makes the Tyrants even stronger on paper, and there's no real reason to expect him to regress. He's had some nice performances and has also performed admirably in past SPLS. The real question mark among these players to me is Floppy. I had absolutely no faith in him doing anything noteworthy this tour, but he has managed to save the Tyrants' season on numerous occasions, and has racked up a solid 4-1 record. He hasn't really been that lucky, either. I definitely expect him to regress, since there's no way in hell he's going to end with 7 or 8 wins LOOOL But, at this point, there's a pretty good shot he finishes positive He still has to play Fear and Conflict, and those two games will be critical in my evaluation of Floppy's talents for the near future.

Outside of TDK, the SS OU core of the team is a pretty mixed bag. Christo rebounded from a poor start and has had some nice performances to secure a 3-2 record. With TDK's support, he has a good shot of continuing his upward trajectory; we all know about his ability to amass wins in official tournaments, albeit in lower tiers. The last slot formerly belonged to Nat, before she ragequit after an 0-3 start. The team has currently flexed blunder into SS OU, who should be able to do pretty well and salvage this slot. He hasn't had the greatest SPL; he was expected to dominate a pitifully weak SM OU player pool, but only managed to go even through 4 weeks. I obviously have a lot of belief in him, though, and I think he'll finish the regular season with around 6 wins.

The rest of the team has been pretty weird so far. Luthier is currently positive, but he did have some rather suspect showings this tour. He should do fine, though. The SM OU slot looks like kind of a trainwreck, though. With blunder being flexed to SS, the team has turned to the BASEDLORD in an attempt to rescue the slot. He has looked pretty damn bad over 2 weeks, and it would be pretty unwise to expect him to miraculously turn it around in 2020. A major reason for the team's struggles has been CBB, who currently sports a 1-4 record despite being an OVERWHELMING favorite to smash the lackluster ORAS OU pool. He hasn't played particularly bad in most of the games, outside of one, and he obviously was favored to dominate the pool for a reason. His lack of standout performances on the sheet is a bit concerning to me, but it would obviously be unwise to expect him to continue to struggle this badly. I expect him to finish the regular season with 4 wins or so. The BW OU slot also looks a bit suspect; John W struggled pretty mightily in his 3 losses, and it will take more than a win over jacob to convince me that he's a viable option here. He did display his upside against dice, but his nonexistent track record makes me pretty skeptical. Bab has had some nice wins, but also has displayed some signs of being crust; in his win against hyoga, for example, he nearly threw the game away liek 50 times before winning LOL He should do fine in the thinking gen, though. marcop's farmed some absolutely terrible ADVers, so I haven't really been super impressed by him this tour. He still has to face off against Roro and BKC, so we'll see if he can continue his winning streak against some actual competition. Lastly, Troller has been pretty solid this tour, and has been pretty unlucky as well. It is RBY, but I do expect him to finish positive. Overall, the Tyrants have struggled far more than anticipated. However, they have had some nice surprising performances from their perceived weaker slots, and I trust a lot of their players to finish the season strong.

The Ever Grande Bigs [4 points]:

What a season for the MAGMA BIGS. They were pretty much eliminated after Week 2 by almost everyone, and then miraculously managed to win 2 weeks in a row, before suffering an untimely loss to the Tyrants in Week 5. Do they have the tools to make the playoffs? Maybe, but I'm pretty skeptical after this loss. The team's star player has been Ezrael, who has taken over the mantle of Smogon's best Doubles player. He's 5-0 and is a ridiculous 18-4 in Doubles in the past 3 tours. He really might go 9-0. The team has also been boosted by Santu's very surprising 4-1 performance. I've never really believed in Santu, so I expect some regression; he hasn't really beaten anyone that amazing besides a slumping CBB. The pool is bad, though, so I suppose he could finish strong. Sage has also carried the BIGs with a 3-1 record LOL After looking like one of the worst players on the site last SPL, she's rebounded in a big way in SS OU. I'm still pretty skeptical, though, and the loss that she suffered this week is probably a harbinger of things to come.

The rest of the team has honestly been pretty unimpressive. ima's struggled a lot, and I wasn't that big of a believer going in, so that's not that shocking. They traded sg away and got Leftiez, who has also been terrible this tour. Joey's been decent enough, I guess. Sabella and GTG have both been like...fine? LC has been a complete disaster for the BIGs, as they are currently 0-5 with a combination of trash / ninjadog / kushalos. It's hard to envision this slot ever improving. The X factor in this team is Charmflash, who they traded for at midseason. He has a high ceiling, but he's looked like a shell of himself this tournament; he even timed out this week. They'll need him to stop being distracted and get some wins if they want to sneak into the playoffs. They'll also need Fakes to play up to his skill level, and not just get subbed out on sunday LOL Besides him, their ADV is an absolute disaster. The BIGs GSC has also tanked the season, with HODOR, Descending, and Charmflash combining for an 0-5 record. Not very good looks bros...Nails is positive in the meme tier, so I guess there's that.

The BIGs still have a lot of holes, and many of their slots are struggling mightily. They desperately need Charmflash and Fakes to hard carry them, but considering that they are currently 2-3, it seems pretty unlikely to me that they can dig out of their early-season hole.

The Indie Scooters [4 points]:

The Scooters are another team that's faltered a bit this SPL. The team is unsurprisingly being carried by Fear, who has managed to smash his opponents with the assistance of the God of luck that seems to sit on his shoulder every game. He really might finish 9-0, especially if heee continues to get timely crits whenever he needs them; he's better than most of the GSC pool, so this result is rather expected. CyberOdin has been a solid player for the team as well, continuing from where he left off in World Cup. He's looked relatively solid, and considering how bad the ADV pool is, he really might be capable of notching 6 or 7 wins. Beds is positive in RBY, so yeah.

The rest of the team is sinking the Scooters. No one else is positive with more than 1 win. LC has been a disaster for them, as tazz has had some bad performances and gone 1-3. They flexed zf into LC, which proved to be a dumb idea as well, since he got washed this week. Speaking of zf, his poor tour is a major reason why the Scooters only have 4 points; when your 20.5k player is 1-4, bad things generally happen. I never drank the z kool-aid, so it wouldn't be overly surprising if he continued to struggle.ZoroClick hasn't had his best tour, but he's still an above average player and I definitely expect him to finish positive. Jayde looks to be rounding into form after a pretty rough start; I think he can finish strong and at least end positive. Spreadsheet warrior Lopunny Kicks is also negative; I'm less confident in him than Jayde for obvious reasons, but he has the tools to finish positive as well. talah, to no one's surprise, is 1-4. This is what you get for starting a Greek player in a new gen vros. Quaze hasn't really looked good, and got benched this week. The team has turned to KEVIN GARRETT IN 2020 FOR BW OU LOL which somehow worked out this week thanks to a massive amount of luck. The man brought a Sand Rush Excadrill team from like 3 years ago with no scarfer and just changed the excadrill ability. I'm VERY skeptical about kg's ability to get another win here. Memoric has looked pretty bad; he was hyped in the power rankings, so maybe he can turn his season around. Honor is 1-4, which really isn't shocking because...

yeah. That being said, the player pool is terrible, and he isn't this bad so, he could finish decently well. Overall, the Scooters have a lot of underperforming players; I still have some faith in many of them, but they also have a pretty large amount of holes.

The Stark Sharks [5 points]:

The Sharks started off the tour blazing hot, winning their first two weeks. However, they have hit a snag since, going 0-2-1. They have the talent to make the playoffs, but they'll need to stop fucking around. The team is unsurprisingly being carried by SoulWind and John, who have combined to go 9-1 with some very impressive performances between them. These two performing well was to be expected, and is much needed for such a top-heavy roster. A pleasant surprise has been xray, who has demonstrated that SS may be a second home for him. I expect some regression, since I don't think he's 4-1 levels of good, but he has shown that he can be dominant in the past in ORAS OU, so perhaps he can continue doing well. The last SS OU slot belongs to teal6, who started out looking like a monster. He currently sits at 3-2, but he has displayed quite a bit of talent both in this season and in last Snake. He should definitely end positive, with an outside shot of getting 6 wins.

EviGaro was a nice surprise to open the season, but has fallen back to earth a bit with 2 straight losses. I'm not really a believer in her LC abilities yet, but we'll see I suppose. The real disaster of this team has been Doubles, which has gone 0-5 after a 2-7 performance last year. This tier is in absolute shambles, and they really might go winless LOL The team will have to overcome this flaw if they want to succeed.

The old gens have basically been average. frisoeva has been decent; I don't really think he's good, though, so it wouldn't be surprising if he was terrible to end the year. Erzengel has actually managed to go positive after a rocky start; he's had some nice games, but I'm still not overly impressed yet. DeepBlueC is currently 2-3; I never really bought into his hype nor understood why everyone was seemingly constantly on his nuts. He'll probably finish 4-5, or something. Blightbringer really hasn't been impressive at all, and to absolutely no one's surprise, he seems like a MASSIVE overpay at 18k. I don't really have much faith in him. I do have a lot of faith in Conflict, though, who should be able to end the season strong now that he's not in ADV anymore. Lastly, Genesis has done pretty average too.

This team is basically as advertised. It's extremely top heavy, and a lot of their slots don't really inspire much confidence. They have a good shot of making the playoffs, and their tiebreak is crazy good, but the roster is basically what I thought it would be at this point.

The Team Raiders [5 points]:

The Raiders are doing decently this tour. However, immediately upon opening their sheet, you will see a MAJOR red flag LOOOL THEY ARE BEING CARRIED BY THE TWO VARIANCE TIERS LOL This is definitely NOT a good sign, and just off that, I would be rather surprised if they kept up this pace and made the playoffs. It's not like they really have two superstars there either; ToF is like decent, and MetalGross has been mediocre for the majority of his career. I expect some major regression from these two slots.

The OU core of the team has been surprisingly decent. Vai Lusa has shown some flashes, and was like 23429 Togekiss flinches away from 4-1. I'm not really a believer, but maybe he can continue being solid. Simia has notched 2 nice wins, but I doubt he'll be this good for that much longer. Lycans has struggled a great deal, and to absolutely no one's surprise, he looks like a massive overpay. I expect him to continue to struggle.

Lily is 3-2, which I guess is about what I expected. The Doubles core honestly looked like a bit of a disaster with an 0-3 start, but journey man lunar has managed to put together back to back wins. I don't really know anything about Doubles, but I do know that Lunar got 6-0d by JJ in SPL 5 and has rarely ever been expected to be a Doubles starter over the coure of the past like 8 years. So...yeah, I really would be pretty surprised if he ended positive.

GODSKO finally looks like his old self now that he's out of SS OU; he could easily finish 7-2, honestly LOL That should help cancel out some of the expected regression from the variance tiers. I also expect dice to finish strong; I bold him every week, so I clearly think he's a really good player. He's had some poor performances, but I like his odds of getting 6 wins. Because dice is in BW, the team cannot play Posho there. Posho has proven that he's basically unviable in every non-BW tier, so the team is currently playing without one of its 11k players. pasy looks like an overpay too, which really isn't shocking at all considering his limited ADV track record. The pool sucks, though, so maybe he can do something. Earthworm looks like one of the worst buys in the entire draft, which is something I definitely wasn't expecting. I thought he was a pretty good value for 10k, especially considering that MRE SOMEHOW went for 11 LOL He's looked absolutely washed, though, and based on his current form, it would be hard for me to expect him to get anything more than 1 win the rest of the way. Overall...I don't really believe in this team. dice and GODSKO should ascend in the second half, but the rest of the team seems primed for regression. I really doubt this team is gonna make the playoffs, but I guess it is possible.

The Wi-Fi Wolfpack [4 points]:

Wow, talk about a disaster LOL One of the pre-season favorites is in dire straits, right now, having only amassed 4 points through 5 weeks. I wasn't as high on the Wolfpack as most people, though I still thought they would easily make the playoffs. The team has been HARD CARRIED by the GOAT, who is having arguably the finest performance of his storied Pokemon career. He has looked like an absolute juggernaut through 5 weeks; his team has already played the Tigers, so there's honestly a VERY HIGH shot that he goes 9-0. He also builds DPP and does countless other things for the team, I'm sure. Unfortunately, the majority of his teammates are letting him down. The Well is the second carry of the team. He's gone 4-1 and continued his absurd Snake run; he should be 3-2, but w/e he's still been good.

The OU core of the team hasn't really been that great. Star hasn't really lived up to the hype, but he's still positive with the chance to end the season with 6 wins or so. BIHI has proven once again that spending 3k on DPP is always the play; he does have BKC's support, but yeah. The Baron has notched two wins over Empo, so maybe he can do something. I'm not a big believer, though, and he was 3.5k for a reason. The Hallows has really struggled, and I think he's pretty bad. I would be remiss to end this season without mentioning the team's retain, Charmflash. Charm was expected to be a strong backbone of the Wolfpack after strong performances in SPL 10 and Snake 3. However, he was a DISASTER LOOOOL JESUS he was bad. He played like absolute trash through 3 weeks, prompting Tony to ship him off to the BIGs for some meme players. I don't really think Jyt, who they received in the trade is viable, so I doubt he's gonna contribute anything noteworthy.

HT's fluke run through Snake appears to be over, as he has crashed and burned in SPL 11. He looks garbage, and I'd be surprised if he got more than 1 win the rest of the way. SMB has underperformed as well, proving that Ezrael is really the only Doubles player worth 10k or more lol. He's still very hyped, though, so I expect him to finish positive. Sjneider continues to surprise me, and wins a decent amount of the time. With ABR's team support, he's in prime position to end the tour positive, although I'm still not a massive believer in his skill. Pearl has really struggled this tour. He was obviously going to be an overpay; I don't think anyone would have argued with that. He's a good player, but getting him for 23k in a tour with no lower tiers seemed absolutely insane LOL He hasn't played particularly great, so it wouldn't shock me if he ended negative, although I am expecting him to do no worse than 2-2 the rest of the way. The milk has been a disaster too, somehow LOL I figured he would get around 5 wins, but he's looked absolutely terrible; there's no signs that he will turn this tour around. RBY has also been a disaster, with rozes and sceptross combining for one win. I think rozes is decent at RBY, and it is the variance tier, so he'll probably get a few wins. Overall, the Wolfpack clearly have a lot of talent, but they've really struggled. The team definitely possesses a fair amount of holes, but they still have the support of both ABR and the GOAT, as well as a plethora of talent that should allow them to compete for the playoffs in an SPL with no real complete teams.

5 weeks is not nearly enough to just throw out everything I believed before.

TLDR:

1. There was no overly dominant on-paper roster, so this seemed like kind of a wide-open tournament
2. That being said, I thought that the Tyrants, Cryonicles, and Wolfpack were the three best teams
3. After this, there was a drop-off
4. The rest of the teams were all relatively close, but I ended up ranking them in the order of Sharks / Scooters / Tigers / Classiest / BIGs / Raiders / Ruiners

Final Rankings:

1. The Cryonicles [up from 2]

This team's been fire so far, and I've thought they were one of the most talented teams since the beginning. They have room to improve, too, and I expect Sacri', Eo, and Kanto to all end the regular season with 6 wins or more.

The Ruiners make a strong case for second, but at the end of the day, I ranked the Tyrants first and the Ruiners last in the original rankings for a reason. The Tyrants still have a very good chance to make the playoffs, and I expect some of their players to bounce back. They also have received big boosts from Doubles and GSC, the latter of which I thought was going to be a complete trainwreck for them. TDK has also shown that he may have in fact been worth his ridiculous price tag. The Ruiners are clearly better than most people thought, but I'm still not gonna drink the kool-aid on a lot of their players yet; the sample size isn't big enough. Is a 3 point difference enough to overcome the difference between 1st and 10th? To me, in this case, I would say no. That being said, their individual dominance combined with the mediocrity of the other teams on this list, as well as the fact that their main weaknesses are in the variance tiers, locks their spot in the top 3.

4. The Congregation of the Classiest [up from 7]
5. The Stark Sharks [down from 4]
6. The Wi-Fi Wolfpack [down from 3]

LOL These three are all VERY close. like. VERY. To me, the Classiest just have more people I wasn't expecting to be good than the other teams. suapah has really impressed me; I'd have thought he'd go 0-5 against those players LOL jesus. Their OU is solid and I really expect Tama and Anti to be strong in the latter half of the season, which should help offset TIN's inevitable regression. Their schedule is also VERY favorable. The Sharks are basically exactly the type of the team I thought they would be, so dropping them more than 1 spot seems kind of dumb. The Wolfpack have one less point than either of these teams, which at this point in the season, is relatively significant. They also still have to face the Cryos AND the Tyrants, so things might get a bit tricky for them from here. That being said, the GOAT is playing the best Pokemon of his life, and they still have some very solid players. I thought they were a top 3 team going in, and while the loss of Charmflash and the complete decline of the milk man definitely lowers their ceiling a bit, they still have enough tools to get to the playoffs.

7. The Team Raiders [up from 9]
8. The Indie Scooters [down from 5]
9. The Ever Grande BIGs [down from 8]

Of these three, I have the most belief in the Scooters players to bounce back. I wouldn't be completely surprised if they made a run. The Raiders are due for some serious regression, and Earthworm's descent into complete crust definitely hurts them. That being said, dice and GODSKO definitely have the talent to go undefeated the rest of the way. Just off the strength of those two, I'll give them the edge over the BIGs, who will have to rely on Charmflash getting back to his 2019 form and Fakes actually showing up for his games. They also have 1 more point than either of these teams, which is enough for the tiebreak.

10. The Circus Maximus Tigers [down from 6]

The Tigers have 3 points people LOL This roster is NOT talented enough to get 7 more points in 4 weeks.

im the best

meh

I haven't thought long about it so maybe I am missing something but I think it would be better if players can be sold back without having to be inactive/a bad presence or whatever. There could even be additional restrictions like not allowing a newly bought player from sellback credits to play for the following week should you be concerned about teams trying to abuse this system too much. Or just limiting the number of times players can be sold back per team.
Of course, should a player be toxic or refuse to play for a certain team, they should get punished accordingly. But if someone was viewed as a good team member, I find it absurd to punish them if something unexpected happens in their life that prevents them from continuing in the tour.

This was abused in the past to the detriment of the players and is partly what contributed to the abuse of the midseason signups system. Some players were being sold back by their team through no fault of their own on teams where they weren't starting so as to generate more and more midseason credits for large purchases of skilled players or as trade credits for such. This system ends up being unreasonably penalizing to the player more than anything else.

Whims of Fate

Iguanadon6 Yesterday at 5:50 AM
Nice job, @Rewer, on getting your team up to first place rn. :smile:

Rewer Yesterday at 5:55 AM
Thank you mr. Iguana but most the credit should go to the players for performing to their capacity and not me

Iguanadon6 Yesterday at 5:57 AM
Of course, of course. :slight_smile: Your team is performing really well! I have a feeling your leadership along with HANTSUKI's have something to do with the success, though. :wink:

Rewer Yesterday at 6:01 AM
Im just trying to enable them to be the best they can be however there is still a long way to go no jinxing!!!

I would like to say that I agree with Rewer. Most of our sucess so far comes from our players themselves. They are just great and are giving their best to win this tournament. To show you all how is our team spirit and how hard we've been working, I wanna show you the difference between any other team and the Alpha Ruiners:

Any Other SPL team:

Player X: damn should I use more speed?
Player Y: yeah, buddy, it'll be useful in some matchups
Player Z: let's test it now, I'm on main

The Alpha Ruiners:

VilemanInSPL2020 (hyogafodex) Today at 9:28 PM
fuck it i forgot to Lock the door of the bathroom for my wank
and my grandma openned the door

I've never felt better in my life

as a very casual watcher of spl im not able to keep up to date with all the games that are played, but i'm interested in seeing great games being played. would it be possible to include some kind of questionnaire in the replays thread where people get to vote for their favorite game(s) of the past week, with the results being published later? i've always felt like smogon lacked a good place to highlight exemplary games and now that im not as involved as i used to be ive really come to miss such a function

as a very casual watcher of spl im not able to keep up to date with all the games that are played, but i'm interested in seeing great games being played. would it be possible to include some kind of questionnaire in the replays thread where people get to vote for their favorite game(s) of the past week, with the results being published later? i've always felt like smogon lacked a good place to highlight exemplary games and now that im not as involved as i used to be ive really come to miss such a function

Since RBY will be cut for SPL12 and I'll be twiddling my thumbs during it I'm down to contribute towards putting together something like this, also very happy to contribute with things like prediction tour, schedule spreadsheet etc. I think there's a lot that could be done to enhance the viewer experience, and even what is currently here isn't working as well as it could (prediction tour dropped, schedule spreadsheet often has entire series that aren't filled until the weekend if at all, etc). I fuck with this idea a lot

Since RBY will be cut for SPL12 and I'll be twiddling my thumbs during it I'm down to contribute towards putting together something like this, also very happy to contribute with things like prediction tour, schedule spreadsheet etc. I think there's a lot that could be done to enhance the viewer experience, and even what is currently here isn't working as well as it could right (prediction tour dropped, schedule spreadsheet often has entire series that aren't filled until the weekend if at all, etc). I fuck with this idea a lot

Michelle Light

Initially I wanted to wait until after this tour, but due to the new Pokemon in gen8ou I've decided to free up the SS OU council spot in favor of a more involved person. I hope that during my short time on it I was of use to the other council members, and would I'd like to thank ya'll for giving me the oppertunity to help lead a scene I used to love. Unfortunately, I've lost my passion for this game a while ago and only kept playing in official games. I believe that I have a total of around 30 ladder games played over the last year, if we dont count early gen SS and OLT. Naturally, this affected my in-game abilities, since this game is a lot about practice. On top of that I also put in much less effort during prep, which used to be the area where I was really getting ahead of others. For this I'd like to apologize to the Wolfpack, especially to TonyFlygon since he was expecting the same dedication I had last year. I don't think that I was as grossly inactive as some say, but it was definitely very low for my previous standards. Lastly, I really did not enjoy the very limited teambuilding options SS OU had to offer, which just led to me hating every moment I was playing the game, ultimately asking myself why I do any of this in my free time, as a hobby.

I never wanted to be seen as the best. I just wanted to become a "tournament player" since those are supposed to be way better than anybody else. I feel like I achieved that and much more, so I don't have much of a drive in that regard anymore either. What I can say after the transition from ladder hero to tournament player is that the level of play is definitely higher, but it's not as big a difference as most of the community thinks. People just care more during/before their games, for the most part. Since we're on the topic of community I think that I should also address this at least a bit. Lavos was definitely right in that the community largely doesn't care for people's actual ability to play competitive pocket monsters. Whether somebody thinks anybody else is good is mostly decided on a petty argument you've had with them 3 years ago or depending on how much likes holding a certain opinion can bring you in. The ridiculousness of this whole ordeal is another reason why I've been wanting to distance myself from smogon. The loudest voice will become reality on this site whether its the truth or not. To give just one example, people truly believe that going SpD Clef in my game three would have solved my issue and I'm so dumb that I dont know SpD Clef can switch into Hydreigon. This was my actual problem with the line. Guessing correctly earns you a lot of praise, and nobody is batting an eye to objective missplays, especially when you still win the game. One example of this would be ABR missing a guaranteed two turn endgame win here, during the smogon tour semi-final. I think that generally this game isn't getting played at a super high level on smogon. There is way too little time to think over all the lines with the current timer, and most people don't even bother doing any sort of probability calculations that aren't trivial. Another issue is the practice of complaining about hax being shunned. I realize that the opposite extreme would probably be worse. At the same time sometimes you get set back much more than your opponent, and while you technically could 'play around it' you'd need to be 2-3 times 'better' than your opponent rather than just 'better'. Playing around it and being better is referring to doing correct guesswork here. While you can do educated guesses and get a good game instinct with a lot of practice, you would still need a lot of games for the luck part to equalize, and we are judging players on their performance over ~9 games in tournaments. Not to mention that you might be playing Lavos when you get matched up against Valentine, or M Dragon when you play a Spanish player.

Overall I just lost my passion for this game, and I don't think that trying to maintain a good reputation as a player is worth it when I don't actually like playing it anymore. I might re-gain my passion at some point, but most likely I'll just quietly fade away. I've experienced everything I wanted to on this site, and would like to thank you all for the fun I had, but the current state of affairs isn't that appealing to me and I'd rather do something else with my life.

Initially I wanted to wait until after this tour, but due to the new Pokemon in gen8ou I've decided to free up the SS OU council spot in favor of a more involved person. I hope that during my short time on it I was of use to the other council members, and would I'd like to thank ya'll for giving me the oppertunity to help lead a scene I used to love. Unfortunately, I've lost my passion for this game a while ago and only kept playing in official games. I believe that I have a total of around 30 ladder games played over the last year, if we dont count early gen SS and OLT. Naturally, this affected my in-game abilities, since this game is a lot about practice. On top of that I also put in much less effort during prep, which used to be the area where I was really getting ahead of others. For this I'd like to apologize to the Wolfpack, especially to TonyFlygon since he was expecting the same dedication I had last year. I don't think that I was as grossly inactive as some say, but it was definitely very low for my previous standards. Lastly, I really did not enjoy the very limited teambuilding options SS OU had to offer, which just led to me hating every moment I was playing the game, ultimately asking myself why I do any of this in my free time, as a hobby.

I never wanted to be seen as the best. I just wanted to become a "tournament player" since those are supposed to be way better than anybody else. I feel like I achieved that and much more, so I don't have much of a drive in that regard anymore either. What I can say after the transition from ladder hero to tournament player is that the level of play is definitely higher, but it's not as big a difference as most of the community thinks. People just care more during/before their games, for the most part. Since we're on the topic of community I think that I should also address this at least a bit. Lavos was definitely right in that the community largely doesn't care for people's actual ability to play competitive pocket monsters. Whether somebody thinks anybody else is good is mostly decided on a petty argument you've had with them 3 years ago or depending on how much likes holding a certain opinion can bring you in. The ridiculousness of this whole ordeal is another reason why I've been wanting to distance myself from smogon. The loudest voice will become reality on this site whether its the truth or not. To give just one example, people truly believe that going SpD Clef in my game three would have solved my issue and I'm so dumb that I dont know SpD Clef can switch into Hydreigon. This was my actual problem with the line. Guessing correctly earns you a lot of praise, and nobody is batting an eye to objective missplays, especially when you still win the game. One example of this would be ABR missing a guaranteed two turn endgame win here, during the smogon tour semi-final. I think that generally this game isn't getting played at a super high level on smogon. There is way too little time to think over all the lines with the current timer, and most people don't even bother doing any sort of probability calculations that aren't trivial. Another issue is the practice of complaining about hax being shunned. I realize that the opposite extreme would probably be worse. At the same time sometimes you get set back much more than your opponent, and while you technically could 'play around it' you'd need to be 2-3 times 'better' than your opponent rather than just 'better'. Playing around it and being better is referring to doing correct guesswork here. While you can do educated guesses and get a good game instinct with a lot of practice, you would still need a lot of games for the luck part to equalize, and we are judging players on their performance over ~9 games in tournaments. Not to mention that you might be playing Lavos when you get matched up against Valentine, or M Dragon when you play a Spanish player.

Overall I just lost my passion for this game, and I don't think that trying to maintain a good reputation as a player is worth it when I don't actually like playing it anymore. I might re-gain my passion at some point, but most likely I'll just quietly fade away. I've experienced everything I wanted to on this site, and would like to thank you all for the fun I had, but the current state of affairs isn't that appealing to me and I'd rather do something else with my life.